


Celtic Roots

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Celtic tradition, Comfort, Dumbledore’s Armada flash comp, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Halloween, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Mentions of canon character death pre fic, Post War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Remus Lupin Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27046195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Remus stared at the full moon it was the first time he had seen it in decades. Everything seemed to have changed and yet he was still trapped in his memories. But, Hermione was here and that was a good thing.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Remus Lupin, past Sirius Black/Remus Lupin - Relationship
Comments: 16
Kudos: 32
Collections: Samhain Flash Comp DA Discord





	Celtic Roots

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Samhain_Flash_Comp](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Samhain_Flash_Comp) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Celtic New Year
> 
> Thank you to my beta JessiRomantic

Hermione watched her lover from across the fire, his eyes looking more wolfish than usual. The new potions did a good job at keeping the wolf at bay. However, the full moon haunted him still even if he was now mostly free from it. 

Ironically, Greyback could be thanked for the new development in controlling lycanthropy . It seemed Lavender’s father was a renowned Potion’s Master. When his daughter had been bitten during the battle of Hogwarts, he did everything in his power to cure, or at least suppress, the condition that now plagued her. 

Remus had come to her weeks before, asking her to spend Halloween with him. He had explained that in the past, he had spent it escaping into the body and mind of the wolf. That was what brought them to this moment, with only echoes of the past for company.

  
  


“What are you carving?” she asked, poking at the fire with an oak tree branch. Trying to cut through the silence, as she always did. The desperation to fix things, to be the “bulldozer” as Harry always called her. “And I am shocked that you aren’t using magic.”

“Magic isn’t for everything,” Remus muttered, holding it up, in his scarred hands was a half-finished carved dog. Even though he was not done yet, she could tell it was supposed to be Padfoot.

“Remus... You still miss him, don’t you?”

“I miss them all, Hermione,” Remus muttered. “Twenty-two years. It’s been like a wound that has never healed. It can scab over, but sometimes like tonight it still bleeds.” He set aside the dog and his pocket knife, burying his face in his hands. “I miss him most though, but then again I…”

“You loved him?” She questioned. 

“I was  _ in love _ with him,” he sighed. “I was in love with him from as long as I can remember, and yet I have been mourning him longer than I ever spent with him. You didn't know him. The real him. The one you knew was a broken shadow of himself and that’s the most heartbreaking bit of it all. That Harry never got to truly know him, his own  _ bloody _ Godfather because someone we once called a friend.”

Hermione walked over to Remus, taking a seat next to him on the log he sat on. Clasping his hand into hers she spoke, “You know I would never ask you to set aside your love for him, right? Sirius was a large part of your life. He was the first person you have loved and he was there for you in ways like no one else.”

Remus sighed softly, staring up at the full moon for a moment, then shutting his eyes and leaning into her shoulder. He smelled like parchment, freshly mown grass, spearmint toothpaste and leather. It was intoxicating. Just so utterly masculine and just Remus himself. 

Hermione spent her life chasing after things that she believed that she could fix. Yet, in this instance, she knew that sometimes it was okay to be broken. Sometimes you simply had to accept the cracks and scars made you who you were.

“I don’t deserve you…”

“The world is full of people who do not deserve what they have,” Hermione said, brushing his sandy blond hair out of his face. “But, it is my choice to decide whether or not you deserve me. I want you, Remus John Lupin. So, you are just going to have to deal with it unless you don’t want me anymore.” 

Remus sat up, nervous energy coming off of him in waves. Hermione could feel the tension in the air. He was like a guitar string that had been wound too tight. He quickly changed the subject, “Do you know the original holiday on this day?”

“No, I don’t actually. What was it?” 

Remus was just like her. A fellow bookworm and sometimes know-it-all.

“Celtic New Year, or Samhain which honours the Lord of the Dead and Winter. It marks the end of harvest, the day where the world of the dead and the living brush against one another. That’s why Voldemort chose this night to go after the Potters. Because he knew that there was old magic in the air that night.” 

Remus pulled out a cigarette from the pocket of his leather jacket. Lighting it and taking a deep breath as he did so. The puffs of smoke filled the air with each of his breaths, twisting along with what was coming off the campfire. 

“Must you do that?” Hermione growled playfully, giving Remus a slight shove in the ribs. “It’s a rather horrible habit.” 

Giving her a crooked grin he said, “I know, but that doesn’t mean I can stop.”

“You could if you wanted to,” she grumbled softly. “However, it’s your lungs and if you want to ruin them with cancer sticks that’s your choice.”

“Everyone has bad habits, Hermione, and this happens to be mine.” He started once more to carve the wooden dog, setting the knife aside every so often to hold his cigarette between his fingers. 

Hermione patted the head of the black labrador retriever laid at her feet. Lanie was her way to deal with what happened during the war. Her mother had suggested it out of desperation. It had come after an incident where her father had attempted to wake Hermione with a cup of tea. Instead of laughing or grumbling, she had pulled her wand and threatened him in a calm, cool and collected tone. That had been the scariest moment for him. And Hermione when she had realised what had transpired. It was not rage that filled her, but the  _ sharpness _ . The battle-hardened outlook of someone who had seen both sides of a war. 

Hermione’s parents truly could not understand and she honestly did not blame them. They tried to put it in the context of Muggle experiences, in the First and Second World Wars. But, it did not line up properly. People in those wars fought with the boys they went to school with, not against them. 

Lanie let a soft whine, pushing her head sharply into Hermione’s hand. Her wet nose shoving into her owner’s knee. It was their quiet unspoken language. As if the dog had told her to calm down. 

“Good girl, Lanie, that’s my good girl.”

They sat there in near silence. Lanie’s soft panting, the crackling of the fire, and Remus’ knife slicing into the wood filled Hermione’s ears. An hour could have passed, possibly more, like that, the three of them under the light of the full moon. When Remus was finished he set aside his pocket knife, holding out the wooden version Padfoot. Hermione watched as his fingers brushed reverently over every single inch of it. Sighing, he set it aside. He stood up, calmer now, less jumpy, and his limbs no longer rigid. 

They did not talk about the war. What was there to say? That George Weasley would be forever missing his twin brother? That Severus Snape had his throat ripped out, while he was alive he could no longer speak? That Andromeda Tonks lost her husband and her daughter? That Cedric was killed because he was a spare? That Sirius was murdered by his own cousin? 

That Dobby had died in Remus’ arms, from a knife wound which he had received saving them? As the rest of them cried on? There was nothing to say. Not a bloody fucking thing could be said about those things. Life had to go on. She had to try her very best to stitch the patches back together. She had to try to make the best of it. 

Hermione held up her hand in front of Lanie’s face, “Stay.” Her command was soft and steady. Turning to Remus, tucking her dark brown curls behind her ears, she said, “Will you dance with me? It’s something my parents always used to do when we would go camping.”

“Without music?”

“I almost forgot,” Hermione fiddled with the wireless turning it to a tune she recongized. The sound of the Beatles filled their ears. 

“Yes I will,” he shoved his hands in his pockets, walking over to her. He was staring down at his shoes as though they were the most interesting thing in the world. His shoulders slumped forward, slightly too long hair hanging in his face.

“You need your hands if you are going to dance with me, you know?”

Remus looked up at her words, the corners of his eyes wrinkling and a small smile appearing on his lips. He removed his hands from his pockets. Reaching out for Hermione, he took her into his arms. 

“I do know that,” he pulled her closer, wrapping his scarred and around her smooth one.

Resting her head on his shoulder Hermione realized nothing mattered outside of this quiet clearing. The world could keep on spinning, but all she wanted to do was just stay right there. Remus was like comfort, kindness, and happiness. He was her safe place to land and she hoped that she also was his as well. They moved together slowly rocking from back and forth, her wool skirt swishing. They weren’t truly dancing, but something like it. 

“You know this is the first time I have seen the full moon in decades?” Remus asked, sighing. “I don’t think I even remembered totally what it looked like. It feels so strange to be out here and I am so glad to be spending this night with you.”

“I am too,” Hermione whispered into his neck, kissing him softly, feeling his rough whiskers under her lips. “I love you, Remus.”

“I love you too, Hermione.” He kissed her then, holding her closer when he did. Undoing the tie in her hair and threading his fingers through it.

Remus tasted like the coffee he had been drinking and the cigarettes he had been smoking. His tongue invading her mouth. The heat of his skin sent shivers up her spine. They pulled apart, foreheads resting against one another. His pale blue eyes looking deeply into hers. 

Hermione knew that she was not Remus’ first love, Sirius would always have that place, and that was okay. Just as he was not her first and just like her he accepted that fact. 

“You are worthy of being loved, Remus,” she said. “Never forget that.”

“Thank you for reminding me of that,” he picked up the wooden dog, holding it in his hands. Lifting his head he spoke into the wind, “I will never forget you, Sirius, but it’s time that I let you go. I will love you for all the days of my life, but I need to truly live now not just survive.” He tossed the figurine into the flames, as tears fell down his cheeks, silently. 

Lanie broke her stay, shoving herself between them, but instead of correcting the dog Hermione let her be. Remus needed this. Reaching down she stroked the dog’s velvet ears. “That’s my good girl.”

A silvery ghostly Irish Wolfhound leapt from the flames, taking off into the woods. 

“There is an old tradition among my family of tossing something that reminds you of a lost loved one into the flames. Maybe you will be able to finally let them go, but you have to do it on Celtic New Year’s Eve. I haven’t been able to do it because of my curse, but now I have. I hope I am able to let him go. I think that was him, telling me to truly live once more.”

“Happy New Year, Remus, and to a start of new beginnings.”   
  


“Happy New Year, Hermione,” and then he pulled her in for another kiss. 

_ Loving someone is like the roots of a tree, grounding you to the world, and those you care for.  _


End file.
